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Monday, October 28, 2013

Chapter Fourteen: FRISKY BUSINESS

Tuesday
1:42 pm

Mick dropped me off at Raven’s. I was
glad to finally have another chance to sit down with my client, given that I had
hardly connected with her since Saturday when she came into my office to hire
me.As fast and convenient as modern
communication methods are, texting, voicemail, web chats and so on are no
substitute for good old fashioned face to face.I had so many things I wanted to ask Raven about
- money and drugs and Corey and dealers and XRatedCon among them.But I wasn’t planning to tell her much.At least not yet.There was no reason for her to know about the
phone call or the break-in, which is why I hadn’t mentioned them to Mick this
morning either.No one needed to know –
whether by accident or design, whether in confidence or on the record – that I
was feeling a wee bit scared.

“Can I offer you something?” Raven
asked, clearing her sketchbooks out of the way.

“Maybe just a glass of water,” I said,
seating myself on the worn beige sofa.The living room had been tidied up since my visit yesterday, although
the coffee table was covered with crumpled sketch pages, charcoal sticks and a
rainbow of pastel pencils.

She disappeared into the kitchen and
came back with a couple of bottles of water, a big bag of Ruffles potato chips
and a container of onion dip.She
plopped down on the other end of the sofa, ripped open the chip bag, and placed
the snack on the cushion between us.

“You’ve been busy drawing,” I said,
nodding towards the sketchbooks.

“Yeah.I woke up thinking of a couple great designs and wanted to get them on
paper while they were still in my mind.I’ll show them to you when I’m done, if you want.”

“That’d be cool.”

“So what’s happening?” she asked.

I gave her a brief update while she
munched, and then started in with my questions.I noticed that since her hands were busy with the chips, she wasn’t
chewing her fingernails today.

“You said before that Kitty wanted
more money and better working conditions.Exactly what did you mean, or I should say, what did she mean, about
working conditions?”

“It’s not really concrete, I mean,
yeah, she wanted us to have sick leave and stuff like that.But she really just wanted us to be treated a
little better, like with respect.Like
for Pete’s sake, after filming all day we’re feeling pretty gross.There are showers in the change room, but
there’s never any towels, or at least not usually, and not clean ones.I mean, can’t they just give us some fucking
clean towels?”

“That doesn’t seem like too much to
ask.”

“And we should have a drug plan.Seriously.We all get checked regularly, but still, people catch things.Keep in mind, we don’t use condoms. No one
will download a flick with rubber in it.”

“You’ve
got to be kidding.There should be a law
requiring that condoms be worn,” I said.

“Actually,
there is, but only in California, and that law is pretty recent.No laws like that here.It’s one of the reasons that filming pornos
in Canada is so busy these days.”

“That’s
unbelievable.It’s so dangerous...”

“Anyhow,
like I said, we get tested for STDs, but that doesn’t really mean
anything.I know lots of girls who’ve
caught stuff.I have, too. Luckily it’s
all been curable.You think we could
have a drug plan since, like Kitty said, it’s an occupational hazard.”

“You
girls are taking your lives in your hands. No amount of money could make me
take a risk like that.”

“That’s
kind of what Kitty’s point was, that the risk increases when there are multiple
partners, and that’s why I usually just did girl on girl if I could.”She nibbled on a few chips before
continuing.“Shooting certain types of
movies, like gang-bang ones, are especially bad.It really wears you out, literally.I know a couple of girls who had to go for
stitches afterwards.”

“You’re kidding...”

“No.I’m not.But that kind of really
hard-core movie usually goes to the girls who are most serious into drugs.They won’t say no if they need money for a
fix.”

I took a moment to digest all of
this.

I had known at the outset that this
was a shitty business, but I hadn’t known just how shitty.

“The topic of drugs keeps coming
up.Who’d Kitty buy her pot from?”

“Just about anyone at Triple A can
help you score.Two or three of the male
actors sell a bit, and so does Portia, plus Bongo usually has a stash on him and
he’s there all so time, so a lot of us often bought dope from him.”

Could he be selling enough pot to have
bought a Ferrari?That would take a lot
of reefer...

“I see.By the way, how did Kitty meet Corey?”

“He showed up at a party once.One of the actors brought him.It might have been Dixon...?Actually, yeah, it was Dixon.He met Corey when he bought a bike from him.”

Interesting that Corey and Dixon knew
each other, since one had disappeared and the other refused to talk to me.

Hmm...
Curiouser and curiouser.

“I got the impression that Corey and Kitty
didn’t really have much of a relationship.”

“I guess you could say that.He’s cute, but a bit of an asshole.Wasn’t what you’d call real attentive.” A
blob of chip dip landed on the sofa cushion.Raven grabbed one of the crumpled up sketch pages and dabbed it up.

“Why did they break up?Who was the dumper and the dumpee?” I asked.

“He’s the one who called it off.Said that dating a porn star who wouldn’t
fuck him was an insult.Kitty didn’t
seem to care.I think she was kinda
glad, actually.”

If he had initiated the break-up, then
my spurned lover theory was out the window.

“If that’s the case, then I wonder why
he’s so anxious to avoid me?”

Raven shrugged her shoulders in
reply.I dug into the bag for another
handful of chips.

“Actually, you mentioned Dixon a moment ago,
and I’m curious about him.Kitty made a
lot of movies with him, she met her ex-boyfriend through him, and then she’s killed
and he takes off to Florida.Any
thoughts?”

“Never really considered it.It’s probably no big deal that he moved
away.Triple A, or even really any other
companies in this type of business are kinda like revolving doors.People come and go all the time.It’s not like you can gain anything by sticking
around.Seniority isn’t an advantage.Actually, it’s kinda the opposite: get old,
get out, make way for the newcomer.”

“True.”I munched another chip slathered with onion
dip.“I’m also really puzzled by
XRatedCon.Antonio told me that he
didn’t ask Kitty to go because he thought she was a bit stressed out after the
break up.He didn’t strike me as a
particularly considerate guy.Besides,
she’s obviously money in the bank for him, especially at an event like that.”

“Are you serious?That’s what that fucker told you?That he gave her a pass on the
convention?What a load of shit!He had a fit when she told him she wouldn’t
go; they had a huge fight about it.As a
matter of fact, he’d already booked hotel rooms for her and everybody else that
was going, and he’d bought the plane tickets, which are a business write-off
anyways.That fucker’s full of shit. He
bitched and moaned about Kitty would have to reimburse him for the trip.She told him to go fuck himself.”

“That’s really interesting,” I
said.But like much of the other info
I’d gleaned so far, I had no idea what it signified or where to go with
it.It didn’t seem like the cost of a
hotel and a flight were valuable enough to warrant foul play.“Who all went?”

“Hah!He did, but I didn’t want to.I
got out of it by telling him I can’t travel to the States because I have a
criminal record.For drugs, I said.He dropped the subject as soon as I told him
that.”

“Is it true?”

“Hell no.If it were, it would screw up my plans for
Parsons.”

My cell phone bleeped, and I saw
Derek’s number on the display.I hit the
‘silent mode’ button, and then reached for another handful of chips. I couldn’t deal with Derek right now.The case was occupying my mind, which was
just as well, because otherwise I’d have to resort to the ostrich way of handling
things, and I knew from experience that it wasn’t terribly effective.

“I don’t want to pry into your
business, but I’m a little curious about you.You’re obviously smart and really focused on Parsons and your future.What’s your story?How’d you end up doing film work?It seems like you could be doing so much
more.”

“I will be.Eventually.As for my story, well, there’s not much to tell.I was born on a Reserve up north to a single
mother.She was fifteen when she had
me.She had a lot of problems, I guess,
and I was put into a foster home.She
died when I was three, so I don’t even really remember her.I just hopped around from one foster home to
another.”

“What about your father?”

“Birth certificate says ‘unknown’ and
that’s probably just as well.Anyhow,
that’s the long and short version of my story, and how I got into this
business.Social services pretty much
cuts you loose once you turn eighteen.”

“Isn’t there some kind of support from
the First Nations?Anything at all?”

“Not really, not if you don’t live on
the Reserve, or at least if you don’t have ties to the Reserve.Doesn’t matter, anyways, because even then,
they would never cough up enough for Parsons.”

“Damn.”

Listening to her story, I recognized once
again how very lucky I am.Even though
my mother did a Houdini when I was still in diapers, Shane and I had been
raised in a loving home.I wouldn’t say that we were spoiled, but dad
gave us pretty much every creature comfort.More important than that, though, he’d given us a solid sense of values
and unflagging support.I wouldn’t be
the person I am today if it weren’t for him.For many years, I gave dad cards and some embarrassing piece of spray
painted macaroni artwork on both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

I remembered the card I’d made him
when I was in the second grade.Dad found
it howlingly funny and had it framed.To
this day, it hangs in his office behind his desk, much to my embarrassment.I’d made it made with light blue construction
paper and various colours of crayons.

H – is for making me happy every day

A – is for being amazing and awesome and aardvarks

P – is for see below

P – is for the pepperoni pizza you order for dinner

Y – is for you because you’re the best dad in the world

F – is for fucking fantastic because that’s what you
always say

A – is for another thing I’ll write down when I think
of it

T – is for terrific

H – is for hamburgers and hot dogs on the barbecue

E – is for making me feel extra special every day

R – is for Romeo and Juliet, whoever they are

S – is for super sweet and special and for shit I can’t
find my keys

D – is for being a delightful dorky dad

A – is for applesauce and aardvarks again

Y – is for yellow submarine which is a song you like

Home may feel a bit crowded sometimes nowadays, but in
the grand scheme of things, maybe that’s not so bad.

“I know I’m prying, but I have to ask:
How do you deal with it?Everything
you’ve told me about the industry is just so awful.”

“I used to just shut right down emotionally
as soon as I walked into the studio, and do the same now when I’m with a client.I completely detach myself from what I’m
doing and try never to think about it when I’m not there.It’s a means to an end.When I finish my degree at Parsons, I’ll be
able to say that it was all worthwhile.”

“Cheers to that,” I said, tilting my
water bottle towards her.I really hoped
someday she’d make it big as a designer.“Something else I’ve been wondering about.Your roommate Athena.She just started working there a few weeks
before the murder, and moved in here afterwards.I know you quit working at Triple A because
of what happened to Kitty.How come
Athena’s still working there?Did you
suggest to her that she get out?”

“Yes, and no.I mean, I casually mentioned to her that
maybe she should bail too when me and Crystal and Trinity did, but she was
still pretty new and still thinks she’s get rich and famous.I don’t think the hint even registered with
Athena, and besides, who am I to tell her what to do?She has to figure it out on her own.”

“Hmm...”In that, Raven was absolutely right.“Do you think or did you think that any of
the girls at Triple A were in danger?Did any of them think they might be a target?”

“Not really.I firmly believe Kitty’s death had to do with
Triple A, but I could be wrong.Maybe
she really was mugged on her way home.Who knows?But if it was indeed
Triple A, then I think she was targeted because of the money thing, and if it
was a mugging or a random thing, then Triple A isn’t a dangerous place.”

Actually, it is, I thought, but in ways different from what Raven was
talking about.

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About Me

"A chick who knows the ropes won't get tied up."
Blood and Groom was published in Nov. 2009. Dead Light District was released in March 2011. The Lies Have It was released in November 2011.
For more author/book info, please see www.jilledmondson.com or follow on Twitter @JillEdmondson